I wanted to touch a little more on the Rock Band strum bar after extend usage, specifically after Al's Rock Band party. I still enjoy using it a lot - I really do. Again, it's all about that tension that the strum bar has so that when you pluck it, it doesn't double-strum on you. I enjoy this because it reminds me of plucking a cello string (since I've never picked up a real guitar in earnest) rather than just pushing a piece of plastic.

However, I noted before that the amount of tension - the "squish" - would make it hard to accurately do alt strums or repeated down strums. This fact was made even more clear to me when Al's guitar started fritzing out on us and I sync'ed up the Guitar Hero III guitar. Suddenly, repetitive, speedy riffs - Reptilia, Blackened - became much easier to strum out.

The end result is that, for me personally, using the Rock Band guitar is much more "fun" while using the Guitar Hero guitar leads to much better results. It's something I mention in this week's podcast, which is still in editing (it will unfortunately sport poor sound quality again - another one of our files got borked up; sorry...), and it's akin to me using the Wii remote versus a mouse and keyboard for first-person shooters. Using the Wii remote is much more "fun" for me; I love the sensation of waving, pointing and pulling a trigger button as opposed to moving a piece of plastic on a surface. However, when it comes down to winning, there still is no better substitute for a mouse for my needs (even though I suck enough such that I wouldn't win in a competition either way).

Certainly, it's disappointing that the Rock Band guitar (so far) isn't necessarily fit for intense competition and 100% reliable results. After all, one of the things I Was looking forward to with Rock Band was taking the guitar and trying to play Jordan on the upper frets. But I still just enjoy using it. Because I can kind of pluck at the string without worrying about double-strumming, I now sometimes strum with my wrist such that my entire hand is moving - thumb nicking the strum bar - instead of just keeping my palm glued to the guitar body and only moving my thumb. The extra movement is kind of liberating.

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Now, here's a random note about the editing process. This has nothing to do with Gamespot, which has done nothing but help me improve and show me how to tighten up my review text while still keeping the message I wanted to convey. Rather, this involves my old stomping grounds: NYU's student newspaper, the Washington Square News. I used to write for the men's basketball team, and they had me write a weekly column about pro-basketball on the side. Take a look at this awful editorial I Wrote on Yao Ming's rookie season.

Never mind that the writing could have used some tightening up. I'm talking about the two nasty gaffes that plague my article. First off, everyone who follows sports knows that Shaq's full name is "Shaquille O'Neal". Look at how it's spelled in the article. Second, though this may not be as obvious, those same people would know that Hakeem Olajuwon's last name is spelled just as I printed it right there: "Olajuwon." Look at how it's spelled in the article.

You know who's responsible? The copy editor. I spelled those names correctly in my draft - I can guarantee it. These spellings were CHANGED during editing. It makes me look like a complete hack because it's MY friggin' name in the byline.

There's another editorial which unfortunately doesn't seem to be in the archives; this was one of two that I wrote about Michael Jordan's final stint in the NBA, when he was with the Washington Wizards. I opened with the lyrics to the "Like Mike" song from the old Gatorade commercials:

"Sometimes I dream/ that he is me/
You got to know that's how I dream to be..." (bum ba dum bum bum)

Now, if you remember that commercial, that second line goes in perfect rhythm with the song. Copy-editing, however, REMOVED THE CONTRACTION and then "fixed" the grammar (even though it was broken for the purposes of the song). So in the printed article, it ended up reading:

"You have got to know that is how I dream to be."

What the hell? It almost completely destroys the reference to the song and makes me look like a complete square. Let's not talk about the time that they changed Lebron James' weight to 218 lbs. from what it actually was before the draft just because they didn't bother to look up his real weight in more than one source (yes, I knew he was 218 when playing for high school, but he put on a lot of muscle before the NBA draft and they showed his weight on national television in a stat line).

Copy editing there had a creed that they were the lords of changes and everything they change is final. It's too bad that most of the things they changed my stuff to were completely WRONG.